Gold Refinery Fined $15 Million for Money Laundering

Elemetal LLC, a gold refinery in Texas, has agreed to a $15 million fine after three of its former employees were sentenced in a $3.6 billion money laundering case. Last year, Juan Granda, Samer Barrage and Renato Rodriguez, the former employees of Elemental, plead guilty to importing illegally mined gold from various parts of South America into the US for NTR Metals between January 2013 to March 2017.

Investigators reported that the men bribed Peruvian officials, faked paperwork and purchased gold from a drug trafficker in order to bypass Elemetal’s anti-money laundering (AML) systems. On March 16th, Elemetal plead guilty for failing to maintain an adequate AML system and is currently awaiting a judge to approve the plea agreement.